Alternatives To Nursing Homes: A break in the day for caregivers

Adult day services help keep loved ones at home.

Adult day services help keep loved ones at home.

December 19, 2006|JOSEPH DITS Tribune Staff Writer

Last of three parts SOUTH BEND -- Forty. It's an age, Tracy Longfellow believed, when she could begin life anew. But by whose plan? Last winter she planned her second wedding in May, hoping to rebuild a family with her two kids, now 16 and 19. Thing is, she didn't figure that her dad, a diesel mechanic and confirmed bachelor who never fed himself right, would suffer a severe stroke in February. Only 62, he suddenly spoke just a few words. He could no longer live alone in his big, four-bedroom ranch house on three acres. Longfellow and her fiancé did marry in May and took a three-day honeymoon in Michigan. She also quit her full-time job as an office manager for an engineering company. She and her husband and kids moved out of their Osceola house and into her dad's place. Now she's her dad's constant caregiver -- what some call a 36-hour-a-day job. "I'm an only child," she says heavily. "So it all rests on my shoulders." That's what brings her to Milton Adult Day Services, 922 E. Colfax Ave., where she's just starting to leave her father once a week for five hours of activities. Up to 35 seniors and disabled adults arrive each day, dropped off so their loved ones can go to work or, like Longfellow, take a break. Her mom, long divorced from her father, and the doctor nudged her into it, feeling her dad needed time away so he could be with people closer to his age and do "different things to stimulate his mind," Longfellow says.There are several adult day services in Michiana. Clients come to Milton from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Their numbers doubled over the past year as more people, including hospital officials, became aware of what it does, says Bill Jack, director of Alzheimer's Services of Northern Indiana, which runs Milton. On the go At 10 a.m., the clients hoist mugs of coffee and cocoa over Pop Tarts or oatmeal in the cafeteria. Chester Brechner flashes his playful eyes. "Eighty-nine and haven't been kissed," he says. "I didn't say I haven't been. You're no older than you want to be." Registered nurse Barbara Wirt pulls him aside to a small room where he breathes in medicine-laced vapors from the tube of an inhalator. "She teaches me to smoke," he jests. Wirt, who enjoys the banter, says Milton weighs and takes the blood pressure of all clients on a regular basis. In a nearby storage room, Milton keeps supplies that the families have provided for colostomies and the regular care of emphysema and diabetes. Brechner joins two other old boys to shoot pool in the basement while the music system cranks up "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Clients seat themselves in chairs lined up in a large living room. Staff member Yuchu Mark rallies them to exercise: arms out, arms up, toes pointed up and down. Mark helps one woman stand and step to the back of her chair. Exercisers rise to their tiptoes, except for a man for whom that's too much. To qualify for Milton, a client must be able to stand and pivot with the help of just one person, and also feed himself or herself, Director Norma Napoli says. Wirt escorts 96-year-old Cassie Stephens to a small room and starts her pedaling a stationary recumbent bike. Stephens' had spent 45 minutes on the cycle on her first-ever try, Wirt recalls. On a neighboring bike, 46-year-old Bob Garman says his time at Milton helps him to "gather my wits." The president of the participants' council, Ernie Dobrzykowski, 81, visits to share his infectious smile. He relishes a good chat but admits that memory fails him. At day's end, his wife asks if he exercised, and he says, "Yeah, I think." Whether it's ring toss or ball toss, exercise gives way to mind games like "hangman" or "Jeopardy" or reminiscing about the old days. Participants also busy themselves in an occasional woodworking project or a few planter boxes on the patio. Depending on the client, the staff members talk with them as if it's work, school or veterans club. "We treat people like they are club members," Napoli says. They dine on a Meals on Wheels lunch. If eyes droop, they can find a few chairs in a small room to take a snooze. The family may even ask Milton to give their loved one a shower, at $10 a pop, which is helpful when dementia causes a person to resist the family's attempts, Napoli says. A little help from my ... Longfellow believes the adult day services really could help meet her goal for her dad: "for him to be home absolutely as long as possible." She hires in-home medical care just every once in a while. At $22 an hour, it costs more than she made in her job, which is why she stayed home. Family helps a lot. Her kids watch her dad so she and her husband can go out. Helen Koller found reprieve at Milton twice a week, driving the farmer she married 50 years ago on Valentine's Day, Virgil, from their Elkhart home. "I know what my problem is," 81-year-old Helen Koller said recently. She admitted that she sounded monotone, giving orders, orders, orders to Virgil, who suffers from dementia. He didn't feel like coming that day, but she wanted to go to a Christmas party. Milton and morale boosts from family, friends and a support group have helped her to keep Virgil at home. "If you just have people who understand and say you're going beyond the call of duty, you feel like you are not on your own," she said. On Dec. 7, as the couple went to a concert, Virgil fell and broke his hip. Doctors found that he'd also suffered a heart attack. Now he's in a hospital, and he'll be bedridden for a long while as the stints in his heart heal. Then hip surgery will be possible. "I'm not sure he's going to make it," she said last week. "You hope for the best, prepare for the worst." She was contemplating what she had managed to avoid so far: a nursing home placement. Staff writer Joseph Dits:jdits@sbtinfo.com(574) 235-6158